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Robert Saleh feels the Jets off-season this year has brought, “a little bit of quietness.”
“I think (general manager) Joe (Douglas) has done a really nice job adding some really cool pieces to the football team, but, yeah, quiet,” Saleh told NFL Network’s Steve Wyche at the Annual League Meeting on Sunday regarding the Jets’ free agency. “Last year was a little loud. We welcome a little bit of quietness.”
Some might respectfully disagree with that.
On January 31, The Ahtletic’s Dianna Russini and Zack Rosenblatt published a story with the headline – “Aaron Rodgers, Robert Saleh and how the Jets’ season fell apart: ‘Something has to change'”
The Athletic teased the story this way:
“To better understand the issues that contributed to another failed Jets season,
The Athletic spoke to 30 sources in and around the organization, some of whom were
granted anonymity to speak freely about the inner workings of the team without reprisal. Those sources described a team riddled with excuse-making, a paranoid head coach, an
ill-equipped offensive coordinator and an organizational tunnel vision on the
quarterback that rubbed some teammates wrong.”
The Jets season ended January 8. This story appeared 23 days after their season ended, and less than two months ago.
Shortly after the story appeared, a couple of front-office officials and assistant coaches left.
The two front office officials who left were very high ranking, very involved in the draft, which is just a few months away. Teams don’t usually move on from personnel guys involved in the draft, this close to the draft.
So some would argue this hasn’t been a quiet off-season.
Now perhaps they have tried to keep things quiet since The Athletic article and all the staff changes, which were all around late January and early February.
That is probably accurate.
For instance, Robert Saleh didn’t address the media around the combine like he has in the past.
Some have speculated that’s related to him being ticked off about “The Athletic” article.
So maybe he’s low-keying it this off-season.
Maybe things have become quiet since those flurry of events in late January and early February, and maybe moving forward.
So that will be a good thing for their spring, summer and season, if they can keep it going.
They should probably try to do the bare minimum when it comes to media. Do what the league requires them to do, but limit the special remotes at the camps, especially involving people who have trashed the franchise quarterback. They should have a long memory for that stuff. Don’t just roll out the red carpet for radio and TV shows that went over the line
And more of a focus on keeping it “quiet” should help in the cultural reboot.
As Saleh often likes to say: “Make the main thing the main thing.”
That is a laser focus on winning games and making the playoffs.
Emmys aren’t important. Wins are.
“Gotta win football games,” Saleh said in Orlando.
He added: “Last year was a little loud. We welcome a little bit of quietness.”
And that means no more blockbusters with 30 sources – like we saw in late January. You can’t just sweep that under the rug. That was a really big deal. The dysfunction presented in that story needs to be in their rearview mirror, and that could take some work. You can’t just snap your fingers and do that. Cultural reboots take a lot of heavy lifting.
So no, it has not been a quiet off-season in it’s totality, but maybe it has been over last month or so, and moving forward.
March 26, 2024
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